The Most Misunderstood Concept in Physics

For the longest time I had no real intuition of what entropy actually represented. This veritasium video explained it in a way that finally clicked for me: ▶ this video

I like my entropy story with more steam engines, “The most misunderstood concept in physics", by Veritasium (YouTube, 2023) ( ▶ this video )

This is a great video that touches on your point, the Earth must radiate the heat it receives to stay in equilibrium, even if it uses it to do work in the process. ▶ this video

It's not temperature = constant * (energy from sun - energy reflected - energy radiated) Temperature is precisely what leads to 'energy radiated' after all (see: black body emission). Temperature is not 'the leftover energy'. The Earth is broadly in equilibrium. It's more like delta_temperature = constant * (energy from sun - energy reflected - energy radiated) Any imbalance between energy in and energy out is what manifests as increase or decrease in global temperature. This Veritasium video gives a good idea of what we do get from the sun, if not 'net energy in': ▶ this video

Maybe watch this video about entropy. Its not about where energy flows, its about hoe entropy can be used to calculate. ▶ this video